Measurements with a single click using Point Cloud

Flag the check box “Use Point Cloud” on the Measure overlay window.

When using an Orbit desktop client (standalone or client server) a yellow point cloud hover (“yellow puck”) will be displayed if a point cloud is available.
This is an indication of the point cloud surface at the current mouse pointer position.
This surface is calculated on the fly using a given set of point cloud points around the position of the mouse pointer.

Since Orbit version 10.4 Orbit introduced a more intelligent calculation of the hover. This results in a better presentation on low and high density point clouds.
More information, contact the Orbit support (support at orbitgis dot com).

Measuring a point in the point cloud uses the technique of interpolation. Orbit does not measure or use one point from the point cloud but calculate the measurement using the point cloud points around the current cursor position. The interpolated measurement will be more accurate than selecting the nearby coordinates of just one point from the cloud point.

The use of a point cloud simplifies and speeds up extremely any measurement. Measurements are possible with one single click in one single view!
This technique halves requires the halve of time to perform an accurate measurement comparing to a conventional triangulation measurement.

On the other hand some basic knowledge about point clouds is required :

Point cloud Density
This technique needs a minimum number of points in the point cloud to perform the measurements. When there aren't enough points to calculate an accurate result no measurements via point cloud will be possible.
Using an Orbit desktop client (standalone or client server) no (yellow) point cloud hover (puck) will be displayed.

Point Cloud Ghosts
Keep in mind that transparent objects (e.g. glass) do not reflect the point cloud laser. Consequently these objects are not “visible” in the Point Cloud.
Consider also Point Cloud gaps behind (large) objects and Point Cloud noise (disturbance) due to moving objects.
A correct interpretation of the Point Cloud hover prevents incorrect measurements ((The point cloud hover is not available in the panorama component via an Orbit Publisher).

Measure distance Limitation
Measuring in a point cloud is possible in all areas with sufficient points.
Since the introduction of Multiresolution Point Clouds in Orbit version 10.4 there is no distance limitation on point cloud measurements.